Trevor O’Connell took his second first place of the year in Grade C in the recent Group ‘Emotion’ Competition with the image below. Here’s how he did it:

This shot was a selfie!

Camera settings were –
Canon EOS 6d / 24 – 70mm lens @ 70mm
ISO 800
f/11
1/250 sec

For the shot, I was looking up at the sun and squinting. The camera was on a tripod with a shutter release cable attached.

In Photoshop, I cropped it a little and using layers I added the dark border, drained the colour except for the blue and sharpened the eye detail.

The tears were painted in using different layers with layer effects like drop shadow to and gradients to create the water drop effect. The reflection in the eyes is a seperate image of my daughter masked out so as most of it only appears in the pupil.

The rain streaks were applied using a rain brush i downloaded for free from the internet.

It was a bit of fun really and a nice way to pass an evening!!!!

– Trevor